Saying goodbye to Flickr

**newmikey** · 10-05-2020, 12:21 AM - **1 Like**

I've been a Flickr member since 2007, that makes 13 years this year. The last few years a paying Pro member. As prices slowly went up I had investigated the cost of my own hosting and domain name before but it never made too much sense. Until this year, that is. This year Flickr/Smugmug came with a new nuissance: changing payment processors from Braintree to Digital River. Why that needs to affect me and why I need to be bothered by this is anyone's guess. Of course this is just for "our convenience" but in the meantime Flickr lets us know that "Monthly subscriptions have a higher monthly rate" and that "you will be automatically moved to a monthly plan."

You know what? Enough is enough! The ever-increasing cost since 2013, the fact they cannot manage my switch from Yahoo Mail (who even remembers) to Gmail and now this. I have purchased an account from a national hosting provider for 15Gb and unlimited traffic, registered my own domain which I intend to use for a lot of other things besides photography and have invested in a paid account for Chevereto, a neat web album software.

Points in order:
1. 15Gb is not a lot, certainly not "unlimited" like on Flickr Pro
2. Using and having to set up your own album software is complicated
3. Flickr made it easy to share to FB and by the use of BBCode to almost every forum

Yep, but since the FOTKI scandal (it announced to its paying subscribers on June 8th, 2012 that it is holding their original files ransom unless they purchase extra credits... will remove those files contrary to its original terms of service.) I have not entrusted my originals to any webservice and I have my own triple-redundant backup system with a 5Tb drive connected to my router and two identical drives being mirrored, one which is kept outside the house.

Storage of 15Gb is more than enough for 1280px wide images which I generally use to share. Point to tell, I currently have some 550 images uploaded which including the gallery software take up about 600Mb space. And I have taken the a small hosting package at €50 + VAT.

The hosting provider supplies a variety of install scripts such as zenphoto, chevereto, phpmyimage and more so I tested a couple and eventually did a one-click install of a couple of them in different subfolders on my webspace. Chevereto came out trumps even though its formatting of albums and imagepages is a bit limited. The sharing options are abundant and very convenient:

Social network sharing:

And embedding or linking:

I'm sure I'll find more negatives as I go along not in the least due to my lack of experience with websites and self-hosting of images, but here we go! It's a start. Take a look and let me know what you think: Photo-Graphics - Photography with a twist. I do want to limit and curate my images a bit better than I used to do on Flickr, not just share anything and everything indiscriminately, provided I find some self-control in a drawer somewhere around the house

.

Last edited by newmikey; 10-06-2020 at 07:28 AM.

timb64 · 10-05-2020, 12:47 AM

Very interesting Mike.I've had a Flickr account for a similar time and share many of your disillusionments/concerns,but I'm basically too lazy to go down your route,good luck.

One thought,is it worth retaining a free Flickr account to share via BBCode selected images if all else fails?

Snazzy site btw!

Gray · 10-05-2020, 04:35 AM - **1 Like**

I host my own photos and have done so for years. I use Lightroom 3.6 + the free Gallerific plugin. It takes very little effort to upload and organise images, as long as I have some idea of FTP and folder security. I then just share links and/or passwords with friends and family. It's a great way to share without losing control.

Here's a random example from a day hike on a computer monitor display. The plugin makes the gallery display nicely whatever the device or screen size.

The plugin is available at
http://trialstravails.blogspot.com/2015/07/gallerific.html

**Aussie Matt** · 10-05-2020, 04:48 AM

+1 for taking your data into your own hands!

Slightly OT, but one of the best things I've ever done is learn how to manage a NextCloud server. I now run three: One internal in my house, syncs our phone photos, calendars, downloads etc. One internal in my business, take a photo with a tablet, it appears on my desktop: And one on my webhost, can share files etc with accountants etc.

This is a topic I can bang on about all day: But the core of it is, letting someone else hold your data is dangerous on many levels.

Anyways, I went to go to https://eu-web.online/photography3/ and I get a 404 error..

I thought, what the heck, found your flickr... and read the 'about'... I see you like PClinuxOS... are you aware they have a cloud service for their users: PCLOS-Cloud
I'm a Mageia Linux user, so we both come from the Mandrake tree of linux.

I keep telling myself I need to organise my pics some how beyond just event/month/year. I've looked at piwego etc. Haven't committed yet though.

**newmikey** · 10-05-2020, 05:42 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by Aussie Matt

+
Anyways, I went to go to https://eu-web.online/photography3/ and I get a 404 error..

I know, still moving things around on the server and updated the link to Photo-Graphics - Photography with a twist and re-uploading the albums. Thanks for looking and commenting (and that goes for all).

**Larrymc** · 10-05-2020, 05:51 AM

Originally posted by newmikey

Flickr/Smugmug came with a new nuissance: changing payment processors from Braintree to Digital River. Why that needs to affect me and why I need to be bothered by this is anyone's guess. Of course this is just for "our convenience" but in the meantime Flickr lets us know that "Monthly subscriptions have a higher monthly rate" and that "you will be automatically moved to a monthly plan."

How about a link to the price changes from Flickr as I can only find references to the early 2020 increase to 60 USD for the yearly subscription for the Pro account.

Thanks

Larry

**newmikey** · 10-05-2020, 06:13 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by Larrymc

How about a link to the price changes from Flickr as I can only find references to the early 2020 increase to 60 USD for the yearly subscription for the Pro account.

Thanks

Larry

Here you go! This was my order history over the past few years:

You'll see that I paid $45 for two years in 2016 and $50 a year in 2018 and 2019 each so the price basically doubled. Fast forward to today where I've received a notice to update my payment for the coming year:

If I do nothing, my cost will immediately go up to €7.49*12 and that is €90 which equals to a whopping $105 (!!!). This will happen fully automatically if I do nothing and I quote "Your plan will automatically change to a Flickr Pro 1 Month on November 12, 2020."

But I can do myself a favor and pay for the whole year so the bill comes to €65.88 which works out to $77. So even though they are "giving me a discount" my cost compared to last year still goes up by more than 50% - compare it to only 4 years ago and my cost has even tripled (or more than quadrupled if I do nothing)!

Last edited by newmikey; 10-06-2020 at 07:16 AM.

**Larrymc** · 10-05-2020, 07:26 AM

Originally posted by newmikey

Here you go! This was my order history over the past few years:

You'll see that I paid $45 for two years in 2016 and $50 a year in 2018 and 2019 each so the price basically doubled. Fast forward to today where I've received a notice to update my payment for the coming year:

If I do nothing, my cost will immediately go up to €7.49*12 and that is €90 which equals to a whopping $105 (!!!). This will happen fully automatically if I do nothing and I quote "Your plan will automatically change to a Flickr Pro 1 Month on November 12, 2020."

But I can do myself a favor and pay for the whole year so the bill comes to €65.88 which works out to $77. So even though they are "giving me a discount" my cost compared to last year still goes up by more than 50% - compare it to only 4 years ago and my cost has even tripled (or more than quadrupled if I do nothing)!

I'm paid up through Nov 7, 2022 for 101 USD (50.50 USD/ yr). I'll worry about it then. Good luck.

**W412ren** · 10-05-2020, 10:18 AM

I’ve been through this same thought process with the recent changes to Flickr. My subscription changed from $49.99 to £55.88 - approx $72.50. This year I decided to renew because as part of the Flickr Pro subscription you get a two month redemption code with Adobe. This is worth £20.20 ($26) to me so Flickr effectively cost me $46.50 for the year. YMMV

**newmikey** · 10-05-2020, 10:31 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by W412ren

I’ve been through this same thought process with the recent changes to Flickr. My subscription changed from $49.99 to £55.88 - approx $72.50. This year I decided to renew because as part of the Flickr Pro subscription you get a two month redemption code with Adobe. This is worth £20.20 ($26) to me so Flickr effectively cost me $46.50 for the year. YMMV

I get you. That makes a lot of sense. Viewbug have been trying to swing me with goodies like that as well basically stating I would end up with a free account and then some if I redeemed all of the codes. However, I do not use anythin from Adobe, no Windows or IOS software, nothing, nada so those "goodies" don't do anything at all for me.

To me, the cost is the cost. TANSTAAFL

**W412ren** · 10-05-2020, 10:38 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by newmikey

TANSTAAFL

Very true

**Ian.morgan** · 10-06-2020, 06:00 AM

And herein lies the reason I don't do that :

How your post appears in my browser :

normhead · 10-06-2020, 06:06 AM - **1 Like**

I read somewhere that Flickr lost about 5 million or some such number last year. So when they offered me a chance to increase how much I pay, I went for it. I'm not one of those people who expect company to lose money to provide service for me.

We have our own web domain. I'm not interested in doing the work.

**newmikey** · 10-06-2020, 07:29 AM

Originally posted by Ian.morgan

And herein lies the reason I don't do that :

How your post appears in my browser :

Yep, I know and acknowledge there was a small change. You obviously didn't read that point in one of my previous posts in this thread. I'll make it right for your browser as well...there you go!

Fenwoodian · 10-06-2020, 07:53 AM

.
I've been on Flickr for 4 years now, and think it's worth every penny I pay for a pro subscription.

I'll admit that it's not a good platform to use for cloud storage. Why? Well, you can't upload RAW image files. For my cloud storage I continue to use Dropbox.

What I particularly value Flickr for is getting massive amounts of feedback on my experimental bokeh photos. I'm continuously experimenting with bokeh techniques and lenses. I find that the excellent critical feedback I get on my sometimes wild and crazy images is worth their price of admission.

10-05-2020, 12:21 AM - 1 Like	#1
newmikey Site Supporter Join Date: May 2007 Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,287	Saying goodbye to Flickr I've been a Flickr member since 2007, that makes 13 years this year. The last few years a paying Pro member. As prices slowly went up I had investigated the cost of my own hosting and domain name before but it never made too much sense. Until this year, that is. This year Flickr/Smugmug came with a new nuissance: changing payment processors from Braintree to Digital River. Why that needs to affect me and why I need to be bothered by this is anyone's guess. Of course this is just for "our convenience" but in the meantime Flickr lets us know that "Monthly subscriptions have a higher monthly rate" and that "you will be automatically moved to a monthly plan." You know what? Enough is enough! The ever-increasing cost since 2013, the fact they cannot manage my switch from Yahoo Mail (who even remembers) to Gmail and now this. I have purchased an account from a national hosting provider for 15Gb and unlimited traffic, registered my own domain which I intend to use for a lot of other things besides photography and have invested in a paid account for Chevereto, a neat web album software. Points in order: 1. 15Gb is not a lot, certainly not "unlimited" like on Flickr Pro 2. Using and having to set up your own album software is complicated 3. Flickr made it easy to share to FB and by the use of BBCode to almost every forum Yep, but since the FOTKI scandal (it announced to its paying subscribers on June 8th, 2012 that it is holding their original files ransom unless they purchase extra credits... will remove those files contrary to its original terms of service.) I have not entrusted my originals to any webservice and I have my own triple-redundant backup system with a 5Tb drive connected to my router and two identical drives being mirrored, one which is kept outside the house. Storage of 15Gb is more than enough for 1280px wide images which I generally use to share. Point to tell, I currently have some 550 images uploaded which including the gallery software take up about 600Mb space. And I have taken the a small hosting package at €50 + VAT. The hosting provider supplies a variety of install scripts such as zenphoto, chevereto, phpmyimage and more so I tested a couple and eventually did a one-click install of a couple of them in different subfolders on my webspace. Chevereto came out trumps even though its formatting of albums and imagepages is a bit limited. The sharing options are abundant and very convenient: Social network sharing: And embedding or linking: I'm sure I'll find more negatives as I go along not in the least due to my lack of experience with websites and self-hosting of images, but here we go! It's a start. Take a look and let me know what you think: Photo-Graphics - Photography with a twist. I do want to limit and curate my images a bit better than I used to do on Flickr, not just share anything and everything indiscriminately, provided I find some self-control in a drawer somewhere around the house. Last edited by newmikey; 10-06-2020 at 07:28 AM.

10-05-2020, 04:35 AM - 1 Like	#3
Gray Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: Cape Town Photos: Gallery Posts: 536	I host my own photos - it's easy. I host my own photos and have done so for years. I use Lightroom 3.6 + the free Gallerific plugin. It takes very little effort to upload and organise images, as long as I have some idea of FTP and folder security. I then just share links and/or passwords with friends and family. It's a great way to share without losing control. Here's a random example from a day hike on a computer monitor display. The plugin makes the gallery display nicely whatever the device or screen size. The plugin is available at http://trialstravails.blogspot.com/2015/07/gallerific.html

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10-05-2020, 12:47 AM	#2
timb64 Pentaxian Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: /Situation : Doing my best to avoid idiots! Photos: Gallery Posts: 9,510	Very interesting Mike.I've had a Flickr account for a similar time and share many of your disillusionments/concerns,but I'm basically too lazy to go down your route,good luck. One thought,is it worth retaining a free Flickr account to share via BBCode selected images if all else fails? Snazzy site btw!

10-05-2020, 04:48 AM	#4
Aussie Matt Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Adelaide, South Australia: Don't tell anyone how good it is, please. Photos: Albums Posts: 103	+1 for taking your data into your own hands! Slightly OT, but one of the best things I've ever done is learn how to manage a NextCloud server. I now run three: One internal in my house, syncs our phone photos, calendars, downloads etc. One internal in my business, take a photo with a tablet, it appears on my desktop: And one on my webhost, can share files etc with accountants etc. This is a topic I can bang on about all day: But the core of it is, letting someone else hold your data is dangerous on many levels. Anyways, I went to go to https://eu-web.online/photography3/ and I get a 404 error.. I thought, what the heck, found your flickr... and read the 'about'... I see you like PClinuxOS... are you aware they have a cloud service for their users: PCLOS-Cloud I'm a Mageia Linux user, so we both come from the Mandrake tree of linux. I keep telling myself I need to organise my pics some how beyond just event/month/year. I've looked at piwego etc. Haven't committed yet though.

10-05-2020, 05:42 AM - 1 Like	#5
newmikey Site Supporter Join Date: May 2007 Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,287 Original Poster	Originally posted by Aussie Matt + Anyways, I went to go to https://eu-web.online/photography3/ and I get a 404 error.. I know, still moving things around on the server and updated the link to Photo-Graphics - Photography with a twist and re-uploading the albums. Thanks for looking and commenting (and that goes for all).

10-05-2020, 05:51 AM	#6
Larrymc Site Supporter Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Mississippi, USA Posts: 5,251	Originally posted by newmikey Flickr/Smugmug came with a new nuissance: changing payment processors from Braintree to Digital River. Why that needs to affect me and why I need to be bothered by this is anyone's guess. Of course this is just for "our convenience" but in the meantime Flickr lets us know that "Monthly subscriptions have a higher monthly rate" and that "you will be automatically moved to a monthly plan." How about a link to the price changes from Flickr as I can only find references to the early 2020 increase to 60 USD for the yearly subscription for the Pro account. Thanks Larry

10-05-2020, 06:13 AM - 1 Like	#7
newmikey Site Supporter Join Date: May 2007 Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,287 Original Poster	Originally posted by Larrymc How about a link to the price changes from Flickr as I can only find references to the early 2020 increase to 60 USD for the yearly subscription for the Pro account. Thanks Larry Here you go! This was my order history over the past few years: You'll see that I paid $45 for two years in 2016 and $50 a year in 2018 and 2019 each so the price basically doubled. Fast forward to today where I've received a notice to update my payment for the coming year: If I do nothing, my cost will immediately go up to €7.4912 and that is €90 which equals to a whopping $105 (!!!). This will happen fully automatically if I do nothing and I quote "Your plan will automatically change to a Flickr Pro 1 Month on November 12, 2020." But I can do myself a favor and pay for the whole year so the bill comes to €65.88 which works out to $77. So even though they are "giving me a discount" my cost compared to last year still goes up by more than 50% - compare it to only 4 years ago and my cost has even tripled (or more than quadrupled if I do nothing)! Last edited by newmikey; 10-06-2020 at 07:16 AM.*

10-05-2020, 07:26 AM	#8
Larrymc Site Supporter Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: Mississippi, USA Posts: 5,251	Originally posted by newmikey Here you go! This was my order history over the past few years: You'll see that I paid $45 for two years in 2016 and $50 a year in 2018 and 2019 each so the price basically doubled. Fast forward to today where I've received a notice to update my payment for the coming year: If I do nothing, my cost will immediately go up to €7.4912 and that is €90 which equals to a whopping $105 (!!!). This will happen fully automatically if I do nothing and I quote "Your plan will automatically change to a Flickr Pro 1 Month on November 12, 2020.*" But I can do myself a favor and pay for the whole year so the bill comes to €65.88 which works out to $77. So even though they are "giving me a discount" my cost compared to last year still goes up by more than 50% - compare it to only 4 years ago and my cost has even tripled (or more than quadrupled if I do nothing)! I'm paid up through Nov 7, 2022 for 101 USD (50.50 USD/ yr). I'll worry about it then. Good luck.

10-05-2020, 10:18 AM	#9
W412ren Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Fareham, Hampshire Photos: Albums Posts: 570	I’ve been through this same thought process with the recent changes to Flickr. My subscription changed from $49.99 to £55.88 - approx $72.50. This year I decided to renew because as part of the Flickr Pro subscription you get a two month redemption code with Adobe. This is worth £20.20 ($26) to me so Flickr effectively cost me $46.50 for the year. YMMV

10-05-2020, 10:31 AM - 1 Like	#10
newmikey Site Supporter Join Date: May 2007 Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,287 Original Poster	Originally posted by W412ren I’ve been through this same thought process with the recent changes to Flickr. My subscription changed from $49.99 to £55.88 - approx $72.50. This year I decided to renew because as part of the Flickr Pro subscription you get a two month redemption code with Adobe. This is worth £20.20 ($26) to me so Flickr effectively cost me $46.50 for the year. YMMV I get you. That makes a lot of sense. Viewbug have been trying to swing me with goodies like that as well basically stating I would end up with a free account and then some if I redeemed all of the codes. However, I do not use anythin from Adobe, no Windows or IOS software, nothing, nada so those "goodies" don't do anything at all for me. To me, the cost is the cost. TANSTAAFL

10-05-2020, 10:38 AM - 1 Like	#11
W412ren Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Fareham, Hampshire Photos: Albums Posts: 570	Originally posted by newmikey TANSTAAFL Very true

10-06-2020, 06:00 AM	#12
Ian.morgan Site Supporter Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 152	And herein lies the reason I don't do that : How your post appears in my browser :

10-06-2020, 06:06 AM - 1 Like	#13
normhead Pentaxian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Near Algonquin Park Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 40,451	I read somewhere that Flickr lost about 5 million or some such number last year. So when they offered me a chance to increase how much I pay, I went for it. I'm not one of those people who expect company to lose money to provide service for me. We have our own web domain. I'm not interested in doing the work.

10-06-2020, 07:29 AM	#14
newmikey Site Supporter Join Date: May 2007 Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,287 Original Poster	Originally posted by Ian.morgan And herein lies the reason I don't do that : How your post appears in my browser : Yep, I know and acknowledge there was a small change. You obviously didn't read that point in one of my previous posts in this thread. I'll make it right for your browser as well...there you go!

10-06-2020, 07:53 AM	#15
Fenwoodian Pentaxian Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: USA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 2,874	. I've been on Flickr for 4 years now, and think it's worth every penny I pay for a pro subscription. I'll admit that it's not a good platform to use for cloud storage. Why? Well, you can't upload RAW image files. For my cloud storage I continue to use Dropbox. What I particularly value Flickr for is getting massive amounts of feedback on my experimental bokeh photos. I'm continuously experimenting with bokeh techniques and lenses. I find that the excellent critical feedback I get on my sometimes wild and crazy images is worth their price of admission.